Paleoconservative Observations

Russia: Defender of Christendom?

Maybe. The Orthodox way and the way of Western Christianity were always different, even at the height of the Medieval Era. That said, the West has more and more become post-Christian and anti-Christian, whereas Russia underwent an aggresive anti-Christian revolution in the form of Communism and has turned back to its roots in recent years in response. Pat Buchanan writes a thoughtful column about Putin’s self-conscious contrast of Western Decadence and the more conservative, Orthodox-influenced values of contemporary Russia:

Crimea, said Putin, “is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.”

Russia is a Christian country, Putin was saying.

This speech recalls last December’s address where the former KGB chief spoke of Russia as standing against a decadent West:

“Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.”

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5 Responses

If anyone wants to see the damage wrought by Communism on the souls of it’s victims, all they need to do is look at that map. I’ve recently noticed some “reactionaries” climbing aboard the Cold War revisionism bandwagon, and this needs to stop. As bad as USG might be, actual Communism was worse, and needed to be stopped. It’s the essence of mature politics to be able to distinguish between degrees of evil, and Americans need to get over this “white hat – black hat” mentality. Jusy because USG sucks doesn’t mean that there are/were not worse things out there. I say this as someone who is essentially pro-Russian with regard to the current mess.

I agree with the revisionism. Today is not yesterday. It’s why I was very critical of Pat Buchanan’s imputation of his anti-neoconserative revisionism to Great Britain and Churchill on the eve of WWII. Hitler needed to be stopped, and Hitler had no justification for what he did, particularly to Poland and the millions of innocent victims in the East. That said, we need not conflate the USSR and Russia today, as some conservatives are wont to do. They’re two different entities, one much worse than the other, and neither, being creations of men, are perfect.

Yes, that’s very true, and yesterday isn’t today, either. Some people just can’t help reading the present into the past, and vice versa. Lots of reactionaries forget that USG was once much better, and our enemies were a lot worse. Lots of neocons forget that our enemy was never Russia and Russians, but the USSR and Communists, and that we’re the power promoting “World Revolution” now. Just like I’m always being accused of “Putinophilia” just because I don’t think that he’s the second coming of Hitler.

Given that Hitler was both financed and inspired by the financiers on the Allied side, and war is both a great business and a social/investment laboratory, it is no wonder that the thing that many Ukranians believe awaits them upon any relationship with the EU is fascism. Whether or not the great secret meetings occurred between Hitler and the Zionists and Roosevelt and Churchill with Stalin, the ostensible ideology obscures the true objective of confusing/herding the peasants and out-of-the-loop investors and sorting out who might be more useful where. Does anyone seriously believe that Putin competes more than cooperates with power-mongers at his level? That nationalism even applies when money knows no borders? However, cultural identity is the only thing that distinguishes us in the supposedly “flat” world we live in today (with a nod toward Thomas Friedman) so why wouldn’t cultures under siege circle their wagons or return to wisdom of history? However, if the end game is to close borders to human traffic or pipelines then the money and cultural borders need to be sealed as well. Not that I would blame them if they did.